Dragon Rising

by Ilsa J. Bick

  “Sorry,” Shakir huffed. “Mainly clay . . . harder to dig . . .”

  This was true. The dirt fill occupying the nearly nine-meter space between this tunnel and the next was hard-packed and gluey with age and seepage. They’d worked in shifts, chopping out a tunnel with folding shovels. Abby was tired, but Shakir sounded like he was on the near side of exhaustion. “You okay?” she asked.

  “It’s just . . . hard to breathe in the . . . mask.”

  Not just winded. Panting. That wasn’t right. They wore fitted headlamps clamped around their scalps, and Abby played hers over Shakir’s face. She was shocked at how bad he looked. Shakir looked close to collapse. He was sweating so much that his camo paint was bleeding. His neck and forearms glistened, and his chest worked like a bellows.

  “Hey,” she said, suddenly concerned. She touched his chest. His tee was soaked and his heart banged against her palm. “Do you feel okay?”

  “Headache. Air’s getting . . . thick.”

  “Thick?” Then: “Oh, Christ.” Dropping her tool, she fumbled for the gauge on his air canister. “Holy shit.” She thumbed open her mike to their comm channel. “Tony, we got a problem here.”

  Yamada’s voice came back. “What?”

  “It’s Shakir. I just checked his air. Tony, he’s almost out!”

  “Hell you talking about?”

  “I’m talking about his air, what the hell do you think I’m talking about? His gauge says he’s got another twenty, twenty-five minutes max.”

  “That’s crap. Something’s screwy with—”

  Bridgewater interrupted. “Abby, does he have a headache?”

  “Yes,” she replied.

  “Shakir, what about your chest?” Bridgewater asked, urgently.

  “Hurts,” Shakir managed. “Sharp, and I can’t . . . get, I can’t . . .”

  “That’s carbon dioxide,” Bridgewater said. “Tony, he’s running out of air!”

  “Can’t be,” Yamada said. “I checked those fills.”

  “Tony, no one’s blaming you, but he’s going to suffocate! We’ve got to get him out of here. He’ll be fine if we can just—”

  “Hell with that. I need everyone to work.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake!” In the back of her mind, Abby wasn’t so sure that Yamada hadn’t engineered this. “Come on, Shakir, we’re getting you out of here.”

  Yamada cursed as they backed out of the tunnel. As soon as his feet touched ferrocrete, Shakir, wheezing audibly, sagged against the tunnel wall.

  “He’s faking,” Yamada said. “He’s faking this shit.”

  “No, he’s not.” Bridgewater snagged Jerrar’s wrist, counted silently, then said, “Heart rate’s really up there, and his nostrils are flaring.” Bridgewater tugged up Jerrar’s sweat-soaked tee. “He’s retracting, too. You can’t fake this.”

  “Hell does that mean?”

  “It means that if he isn’t out of here soon, he’ll die.”

  “Then that’s too bad.” Yamada’s tone was cool now, detached. “We got a timetable.”

  Bridgewater stared. “What are you talking about? We’re nearly through. Maybe, what, another meter? Between you, me and Conley that’s plenty. You don’t need all five of us, and once we set up the jammer, we won’t have to worry about tunnel surveillance.”

  “No,” Yamada said.

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake.” Abby had had enough. Shouldering her rifle, she pushed between Yamada and Bridgewater, and knelt by Jerrar’s side. “Come on,” she said, looping his right arm around her shoulders and wedging her left shoulder into his right armpit.

  “Sorry,” Shakir panted. “Abby . . . I . . .”

  “Shut up,” she said, helping him to his feet. “Save your air.”

  “Abby,” Yamada warned. “Don’t make me . . .”

  “Don’t make you what? You going to shoot me, Tony?” She didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, she staggered away as fast as she could, Shakir stumbling to keep up. She waited for a bullet or the sting of a laser, but neither came.

  Then Yamada’s voice seeped, mosquito-thin, through her mask’s speaker. “He dies, you get your ass back here, you understand? Otherwise, you watch him and both of you keep outta sight.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Abby muttered, and clicked off.

  She didn’t think they would make it. Then she saw the entrance, first as a gray splotch, and as they drew nearer, she caught the whoosh of the sea through the open hatch. She didn’t think she was imagining it either, but the air was a little cooler. Shakir must’ve felt the same thing because suddenly he ripped off his mask and began gulping air.

  She half-pushed Shakir up the stairs. Once he was through, he fell onto his back in the tall grass and worked at breathing. Exhausted, she collapsed beside him, took off her own mask, and gave her nose a good, long scratch. Eventually, Shakir’s breathing slowed, and then he whispered, haltingly, “Sor-sorry, A-Abby. Sorry.”

  “No big deal.” She looked out at all that black water. “Maybe just as well. We’ll get the hover so when they come out . . .”

  “No,” Shakir interrupted. “I mean . . . I’m sorry, Abby. Really. But thank you.”

  “Oh,” she said, turning back, “you don’t have to thank . . .”

  And that’s when he hit her.

  54

  0235 hours

  The high-pitched wail of a trumpet punctuated a jaunty, super-caffeinated, manically energetic swing tune. The control room supervisor was some kind of nutcase who had this thing for old-time jazz, swing and something he called “big band.” All the music did for Pierpont was pulp his brain. The music was also loud—not shouting-at-the-top-of-your-lungs loud, but Pierpont wasn’t sure which resonant frequency would be reached first: his coffee mug’s or his eardrums’. Considering his run of bad luck, probably both.

  Pierpont was monitoring reactor coolant levels, the depth of the water that flowed amongst more than thirty-six thousand fuel rods. This kept fission-generated temperatures within tolerance. So long as the flow of feedwater—water heated to steam that powered the plant’s steam turbine and, in turn, the electrical generator—was constant, there should be no problems. So far, his system hadn’t so much as burped, just as it shouldn’t. All the excitement was yet to come: in twenty-five minutes, to be exact.

  But Pierpont couldn’t shake this really bad feeling. People in books or movies always screwed up, driven either by guilt or just plain dumb bad luck. His gaze nervously skipped from his workstation to a bank of six LCD status boards to his left. The control room was arranged in a horseshoe, with Pierpont and two other operators clustered at a central pod of workstations. Each operator was responsible for a specific system. Directly behind was the supervisor’s workstation. The supervisor had both computer access and command override lockout capabilities.

  He gulped cold, sour coffee. Damn it, the plan absolutely hinged on a precise timetable: commands Pierpont must enter that would then translate to a certain chain of events. Everything depended on the supervisor being unable to lock him out, and it had to be done soon or else . . .

  BANG!

  Pierpont jumped as the control room door flew open. Coffee sloshed on his khakis, but he only stared as three men with dirty green faces and wearing muddy camos burst in. But Pierpont’s shift supervisor was already whipping around, right hand shooting for the alarm.

  One of the men brought his weapon to bear. “Don’t. Hands up where I can see them. You, you’re in charge, right?”

  The supervisor, his eyes buggy, swallowed. Nodded. “Who the hell are you? What do you want?”

  “I’m your worst fucking nightmare.” The man grinned: a wolfish, ravenous razor smile Pierpont knew well and which still made the hackles along his neck bristle. “And for starters, I want only one thing,” the man added. “Kill the goddamned music.”

  55

  0235 hours

  Fusilli nearly lost it at the top of a hill. Mashing the accelerator, he crested the rise and
then saw, to his horror, that the road took a sharp turn. In another second, the hover would bullet over the edge and into dead air, open space, certain death.

  Fusilli jerked the wheel in a fierce, hard right. The hover slewed wildly; the rear bumper lipped the drop-off. Instantly, the hover’s computer howled a warning as the ground fell away, leaving the hover nothing to push against. The hover popped, and Fusilli caught a sudden glimpse of a starless sky. Then the hover stabilized, and Fusilli gunned it.

  He’d planned to kill Abby. He’d planned to kill her silently, the same way he’d surreptitiously bled his oxygen little by little. But after he’d knocked her cold and bent to break her neck cleanly, swiftly—he couldn’t do it. He wasted ten precious seconds staring down at her soot-smeared, war-painted face. Then he’d stood, fished out the keys to their waiting hover—and let her live. Knew it was a mistake, but did it anyway because she’d been kind, compassionate. That counted for something now in a way it hadn’t before.

  Bleeding his air was a calculated risk, even stupid. Yamada might’ve let him die or simply killed him outright. Fusilli risked it anyway because he’d run out of options. Even with his rifle, he could never kill them all. And maybe he wanted to atone. For Liz Magruder. For Compton. For a lot of things. So he’d gotten away: climbed over that dilapidated fence, picked his way halfway down to the beach before ducking around and running for the waiting hover two klicks away.

  What Abby said as they’d descended those stairs into that dark, awful tunnel must be right: a two-pronged attack. There was no other explanation for why Dasha wasn’t with them. But Abby didn’t have it all because Fusilli had been with Dasha that night in the woods, and only he’d seen those sacks.

  Yes, Yamada would storm the reactor room. Fusilli knew Parks would mobilize a response quickly—just as Yamada knew he would. They’d drilled through the scenario over and over again. So Yamada was expecting a response, maybe even set up the means by which Parks would know something was going down. Yamada needed this diversion—because the reactor was not the primary target.

  Ahead, the horizon glowed amber, and Fusilli was close enough to pick out the regimented phalanx of bright lights that demarcated DCMS Biham Command. At the sight, Fusilli felt an unexpected pang of . . . what? Relief? He gripped the wheel, felt his knuckles strain against his skin. Yes, relief, and a crazy kind of hope that he still had time and no one else would have to die.

  Because he now knew with blinding clarity what Dasha planned.

  He had one shot, one chance.

  Those sacks.

  The woman he loved. A woman who knew fission and reactors and all things nuclear.

  A woman who knew how to make an atomic bomb.

  56

  0236 hours

  The jazz cut out in mid-blat. The sergeant put a finger to a bud nestled in his left ear, cocked his head, and listened. Then he keyed open a command channel and said, “That’s a go, sir.”

  Parks’s voice came back as a whisper. “Wait for it.”

  “That’s good,” Yamada said as the music died. His weapon was still trained on the supervisor. “Now, there a way to bring up the feed from the holocam in that hall out there? I want it right over there.” Yamada hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “That center screen up there, okay?”

  The supervisor swallowed. “I can do that.”

  “Good. Just in case. Wouldn’t want to have any unexpected visitors. And—” Yamada zeroed the bore of his rifle on the supervisor’s forehead. “I know which button is the alarm, okay? So, do us both a favor. Don’t slip.”

  Grimly, the supervisor jabbed controls, and the image of the outer corridor shimmered into focus. “Nice,” Yamada said, studying the picture. Then he jerked his head at his men, and they took up their positions.

  Conley drifted left. Bridgewater flanked Yamada’s right, opposite the only point of entry into the control room. He now had a clean shot not only at all three engineers but at anyone who might try to come through. That door was a natural bottleneck, and there was only one hall that led to and from this wing. Their jammers had prevented building security from detecting the trio as they emerged from the tunnel through a false-fronted panel located in the holocam’s blind spot. Even if they had been detected, the first security guard to cross that threshold could be cut down in an instant.

  Yamada said, “Okay, everyone just do what I say, isn’t anyone gonna get hurt. You,” he lifted his chin at the supervisor, “step away from that desk where I can see you. Back up against the wall, hands behind your head.” As the supervisor complied, Yamada turned to the three engineers still frozen in place at their workstations. “Okay, I need one of you . . .” He looked them over then aimed a forefinger. “You. What’s your name?”

  “P-Pierpont.” The quaver was real. “Justin Pierpont.”

  * * *

  “According to the seating chart,” the sergeant said, “Pierpont’s on the supervisor’s left.”

  “All right, that clinches it,” Parks said. “We’re a go, people. Remember, contained bursts. We can’t fry those circuits. Let’s move.”

  Yamada nudged Pierpont’s neck with his rifle. “Okay, Slick, here’s the plan. I want you to cut power to that Drac base.”

  This was not what Pierpont expected. “Pardon me?”

  “You got a problem with your hearing, Slick?”

  “Uh,” Pierpont said. He was thoroughly confused. This wasn’t the plan. In less than ten minutes, that virus would go active. Then he’d be dead meat because he wouldn’t have done anything to account for why things would start happening. “I . . . it’s not that simple. The only way to cut power is to scram the reactor or cut off the water pumps.”

  “Pierpont,” the supervisor said, “what are you—?”

  “Shut up,” Yamada said, without turning around. To Pierpont: “What happens if you cut the pumps?”

  This was more like it. “Cut the pumps, there’s no feedwater for steam or coolant, and that’s dangerous. Scramming the reactor is safer.”

  “Okay then, Slick. Here’s what I want you—”

  Yamada never finished the sentence. A dart of laser fire zipped from above and speared Conley’s chest. Screaming, Conley reared back. His rifle spat a tongue of orange flame, discharging with a deafening boom! The air was immediately saturated with the stench of spent cordite and burnt pork.

  Pierpont just had time to see a trio of men—one of them a grizzled giant with a salt-and-pepper beard—drop from the ceiling screaming: “Down, down, down, everybody down!”

  The other two engineers hit the deck—but not Pierpont. The next thing he saw was the O of Yamada’s rifle.

  * * *

  At the first shot, Bridgewater dove for cover. He leapt right, dropping into a roll that carried him behind the supervisor’s workstation. He came up on his knees, and as he brought his weapon to bear, movement flickered out of the corner of his left eye. He tore his gaze off Yamada just long enough to see that the supervisor gripped the business end of a laser pistol.

  Yes! Bridgewater sighted down his rifle at the same moment, and then he and the supervisor shouted, in unison, “Freeze, freeze—!”

  For Tony Yamada, it was like being in the eye of a hurricane. He understood instantly that he’d been betrayed, had known it as soon as Conley took that first shot and not Bridgewater, who was much closer and an easier target. He had time to comprehend that as perfect as their plan had seemed, they’d forgotten about air ducts. They had not thought of them because with their jammers, security should not have been alerted to their presence. Yet, somehow, they had known, and worse. He knew that the men dropping from the ceiling, like spiders on invisible tethers, were DCMS.

  In less than a heartbeat, he saw it all, understood exactly what it meant, was conscious of the weight of the rifle in his right hand and the drag of a sidearm at his hip. And yet triumph thrilled through his veins.

  Because he still knew something they didn’t.

  “See you in hel
l, Slick,” he said to Pierpont. And then he drew his pistol and jammed the muzzle beneath his chin.

  “Tony!” Bridgewater screamed, reacting first, understanding the danger, starting up from his shooter’s stance. “Tony, for God’s sake, NO!”

  57

  0245 hours

  “What do you mean Chu-sa Parks is off base?” Fusilli shouted. “Where?”

  The MP, a lieutenant, suppressed a sigh. “I’m not at liberty to say, ah, Tai-i—” His eyes flicked to a noteputer. “Fusilli? According to our records, sir, you’re not even attached to this command and I—”

  “My God, man, haven’t you been listening?” Fusilli looked like he was about to start ripping out fistfuls of hair. “There’s a woman on base with a bomb!”

  “Sir, I don’t know you. Your retinal scan matches that of Captain Wahab Fusilli, but a scan can be faked with an appropriate prosthetic.”

  Fusilli stared, incredulous. “Faked? For God’s sake, I’m trying to save your goddamned life, you moron! What do I have to do, stick a pencil in my eye to convince you that I am who I say I am?”

  “I need the appropriate paperwork, sir,” the MP persisted. “Or someone who can vouch for your identity. Failing that . . .”

  This time, he was the one cut off. “Someone to vouch for me?” Fusilli said. “Fine. McCain. Get me Matt McCain.”

  0245 hours

  “Oh, Christ,” Parks said. Glistening, gelatinous globs of pink brain—Pierpont’s—slopped his uniform. His beard felt squishy. He’d been closest to Pierpont when Yamada simultaneously put a rifle slug into Pierpont’s head while aerating his own skull. In hindsight, Parks was lucky the slug hadn’t drilled right through Pierpont and hit him.